March 28, 2016

While I try to while away time sometimes I take a run down the
memory lane to good old times... times long ago to label myself as innocent, which
I presume I still am JJ!! During the middle school,
as is the case with everyone we have some people who are close to us and we
tend to be pretty possessive over them. "He/ She is my friend!! My friend
alone! You go pick someone else"...
"No you are NOT part of our gang, you can't play with us"...

Do you recollect such time when we had our own small gangs, if
anyone wanted to be friends with those in YOUR gang, the rest would/ you would
staunchly oppose? All this usually didn't carry an impact strong enough to ruin
anyone... as you would label it now in simple terms as "being
kiddish". Any difference between guys would be sorted through a tough
measure of dialogue involving "Dude, you tell me, you are my friend or
his?"....It was all peaceful, issues sorted through dialogue, rarely did
fists fly. Try remembering such instances and a smile would definitely flash
across your face on such memories. You were until then unspoilt by the evils/
paradigms of the society.

Now take a step forward... a few years ahead... You still have
groups/ gangs of... Let’s say people (friends may be too generic). But, only
this time around those groups are defined NOT by the simple facet of who is
close to you, rather it’s the parameter that defines WHO, THAT person is. Yes,
these groups are defined by the affiliations of race, colour, religion, caste,
creed, region etc. Time has been swept off and you have grown having strong
identity or affiliation to these attributes. You have unknowingly built strong
bonds with these. You recognize yourselves with these and inherently built a
strong loyalty/ passion. And, when these attributes are challenged your
reactions are way different that when you were a kid. You will have physical
violence and aggression answering the challenge, not dialogue instead.

This is what is the difference, as we grow we are supposed to be
more mature, take a wider & sensible view of the situation. But, in actual
as we grow our vision is narrowed as well as blurred by the bias towards the
above mentioned virtues. When our bond with virtues becomes stronger beyond a
point, we defend it more vociferously and in that moment when the emotions
spill over, violence takes command.

This is where we are in the current world scenario. People identify
and relate themselves with WHAT they believe defines them and that is NOT good.

Instead we should try painting all ourselves with the same brush of
mankind (can't find the relevant quote by a famous person)... recognize the
other individual as a human replete of all the tags of religion, region, race etc.,
believe that we just co-exist in this world with rather virtually bordered/ separated
places... maybe this will allow us to desist from spewing venom a.k.a violence,
brandishing a shield against all this rather than presenting it as the sword.